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"Do you really think anyone can get bought or supported by a big company just like that ???"

Of course not. You have to have something really useful and marketable. Usually it's something that attracts enough attention to be recognized. But it's been happening that way for decades. Usually it's work someone does at a university or research lab and then goes on to work in the commercial market.

"And what if that doesn' t happen, or what if you want to retain the ownership of your product and run your own little company?"

You mean a startup company? That fits right in.

"What happens if you don' have any innovation but you just want to use a xommon file format that has been passed from one firm to another one that does nothing in software development but snatching patents and enforcing them??? And they won' t even sell a licence to you because you are too small?"

You don't pay to use the format in daily use or the format will never be widely used. The people developing the software that works with the format need to make sure they are not infringing on anyone's previous work. And if it costs too much to use that format, then either the format won't take off, or you simply don't have enough money to be competing.

"What happens then is that you are screw, and while they might not come right after you, you are in a bad legal possition with no way to change it, and that is bad for any bussiness."

Yes you are screwed if you can't pay for what you did. You made the mistake of using someone else's work without giving them their proper due.

"Now, that situatuion is not made up by me, it is a real life case and the file format is the all too common, everyone' s beloved and granted, JPEG"

JPEG is an unfortunate situation, but all those who used it in their software really should've gotten a license. Just because the patent switches hands doesn't mean the the licenses are void.

"Wake up, there is a trend of so called "companies" that make their bussiness out of this. >-("

And they have every right to do so. Developers can't just go out and use whatever previous work they feel like and call it their own.


"With your ideas, I could put forth the argument: Well, in an anarchistic society, though everyone has the RIGHT to kill anyone else, few would actually exercise that right, because there is no real incentive to killing. So why worry about it?"

No, you would certainly worry about it. You would learn to protect yourself. In that society only the strongest would survive and thrive. Being the strongest may mean physical strength, or being smarter than everyone else, or anything.

"You're right not everyone is like SCO? But some companies ARE. The point of a good law is to allow the benevolent companies like Apple to flourish while also disallowing the evil companies like SCO from trickery."

Which is why you don't use other people ideas without them letting you. Just because the idea seems obvious doesn't mean you can steal it. For example, let's say I write a song with a simple chord progression. I record and patent the song. Then someone rips me off, and claims that over time every progression will have been thought of and used, so they really aren't doing anything wrong, in fact they even used their own lyrics. Well I'd be pretty upset, and I'd enforce my patent (actually my record company would, as they have the money and muscle to do so). I didn't patent the chords themselves, only the way they are used. If this rip-off artist wants to use my song, he must pay me for it.



"first apple attempts to patent the wheel
and now apple attempts to patent translucency

both concepts/ideas have been around for thousands of years

apple should be boycotted until they put their bogus patents into the public domain where they belong "

Did you even read the patent?